Pay Close Attention to This Key Victory

Hideo Nomo had just been traded for two New York bodies that couldn’t elicit mania from a maniac.

Todd Hollandsworth had just been found to have a possible season-ending shoulder injury, their third rookie of the year to leave the dugout in the last three weeks.

The unsteady Dodgers were teetering, teetering, teetering toward another embarrassing crash into another light pole Thursday evening.

When Jose Vizcaino stood up.

Right there in the dugout, in the ninth inning against the St. Louis Cardinals, with the score tied, 2-2, and Jim Eisenreich on second base and one out.

Vizcaino stood and shouted, “On this pitch, the game is over. Right now. The game is over.”

Teammates caught on quick.

“Take that towel off your arm,” Raul Mondesi shouted to reliever Scott Radinsky.”The game is over.”

By the time Jeff Brantley threw the 2-and-2 fastball to Charles Johnson, everyone around Vizcaino was standing.

Then running, skipping, leaping toward home plate to greet Eisenreich after Johnson’s line drive to left-center field scored him with the winning run.

All of them led by the dancing Vizcaino.

“This game was big, big,” he said. “We forgot about what has been happening.”

And remembered one simple thing.

It’s still about baseball.

It’s still about doing your job.

In overcoming a seventh-inning deficit for only the third time in 27 similar situations this year, the Dodgers finally lived the wise words of veteran Thomas Howard.

“Distractions are a cop-out,” he said.

Indeed they are.

Co-workers taking new jobs? Happens in every workplace.

The bosses may be in trouble? Whose aren’t?

Worried about their job status? Isn’t everybody?

Just a guess, but of the 41,181 amazing fans who showed up for a 4:30 p.m. start Thursday, about half of them overcome distractions just to walk through those gates.

Getting off work early. Picking up the kids from their mother. Dueling with the rush hour.

As the Dodgers begin the rest of their season in Seattle today, a troubled team that still needs starting pitching, they need to remember how Thursday night felt.

It’s still about baseball.

It’s still about guys like Eric Karros, essentially playing on one leg, punching a two-out RBI liner to center field in the eighth inning, limping to first as the tying run scored.

His surgically repaired left knee will never fully heal until this winter, when it may require more surgery to repair the damage he is doing with his rushed comeback.

But he is playing anyway. The player considered easiest to trade last winter has a chance to become an inspirational cornerstone.

“Ideally, I would just shut it down for two or three months,” Karros said. “But I don’t have that luxury. I’ll keep playing. This is what I do.”

It’s still about guys like Eisenreich, with one hit in 13 at-bats in this home stand, battling a hated forkball from Brantley to knock it into center field in the ninth inning to start the game-winning rally.

“I’m pretty much clueless up there,” Eisenreich said. “The ball just hit my bat.”

It’s still about Manager Bill Russell, struggling daily to make sense of this whirlwind, sending Eisenreich on a smart steal to set up Johnson’s winning hit.

When Eisenreich scored, while the crowd roared, a sigh was audible.

“We exorcised the demons,” said Mark Guthrie, who helped with a scoreless inning.

But only for now.

This remains a troubled team that will need the heart of Karros and the confidence of Vizcaino to survive the summer.

The Nomo trade is probably a wash. Dave Mlicki is a fifth starter at best, and Greg McMichael is a decent right-handed setup man.

Did they get the consistent starting pitcher they needed? Not exactly.

Did they improve themselves in the bullpen? Not quite.

Could they have gotten more for Nomo if they had allowed him to demand a trade without forcing him out first? Not much.

With his trade-me-now attitude and unwillingness to adjust, the more he pitched here, the more his value would have dropped.

The loss of Hollandsworth may also turn out to be a wash. While he had been playing well in the last couple of weeks, he still never reached his late 1996 form that won him the rookie-of-the-year award.

The Dodgers can finally give Roger Cedeno a regular chance there and, if he fails, they can go back to still-green Paul Konerko.

The Hollandsworth spin is that, frankly, he should not have been the opening day left fielder anyway.

The Dodgers had a hole there during the off-season that should have been filled with a better hitter, but General Manager Fred Claire’s hands were essentially knotted because of new owner Fox.

Now, of course, it may be too late. A couple of winters of inactivity have ensured that the turmoil around here is not ending, just starting.

Which makes nights like Thursday so special, so important, so necessary for all of us.

Nights when it’s still about baseball.